Hack A Day
on
Hacking Santa
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Hack A Day had this up on their site a few days ago here. In the comments on that page, there is a link to this really creepy hack that someone did with one of those Santas.
Contrary to popular belief, Fischer didn't emerge from the womb a full-blown grand master. While he was learning the game, as a child in Brooklyn, he was essentially a hotshot club player--a prodigy, to be sure, but not obviously world-championship material. But at age thirteen, in 1956, Fischer made a colossal leap. That year he became the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Championship. He also dominated the U.S. tournament circuit. What was astounding wasn't simply that a gawky thirteen-year-old kid in blue jeans was suddenly winning chess tournaments. It was the way he was winning. He didn't just beat people--he humiliated them.
Maybe the onset of puberty "turned on" his mental illness. This article and others seem to suggest that puberty can trigger an underlying mental condition. In fact, this article says:
Social phobia is the irrational fear and avoidance of being in a situation in which a person's activities can be watched by others. In a sense, it is a form of "performance anxiety," but a social phobia causes symptomsthat go well beyond the normal nervousness before an on-stage appearance. People suffering social phobias intensely fear being watched or humiliated while doing something--such as signing a personal check, drinking a cup of coffee, buttoning a coat or eating a meal--in front of others. Many patients suffer a generalized form of social phobia, in which they fear and avoid most interactions with other people. This makes it difficult for them to go to work or school, or to socialize at all. Social phobias occur equally among men and women, generally developing after puberty and peaking after age 30. A person can suffer from one or a cluster of social phobias.
My company recieved this from a Seagate representative:
September 12, 2002
Dear Seagate Sales & Marketing Team,
Beginning October 1, 2002, all Seagate® desktop and personal storage products will ship with a one-year limited warranty.
This warranty change will affect all generations of products that are shipping today; if a product ships on or after October 1, it will be covered by the one-year warranty policy. This warranty change will not affect Seagate enterprise products. All other aspects of the Seagate warranty administration will remain unchanged.
The new warranty policy will allow Seagate to remain a leading supplier in the highly competitive desktop disc storage market, delivering innovative, reliable, and cost-effective personal storage products. Seagate continues to incorporate state-of-the-art features, such as SoftSonicÔ fluid bearing motors, G-Force Protection, and other 3D Defense SystemÔ features, to ensure that its drives perform reliably in the field.
If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact (named removed) at (number removed) or (name removed) at (number removed).
A "Q&A" is provided below for further clarification.
I didn't get the "Q&A" part of the email as this was forwarded to me by someone on our sales staff so I don't know what their reasons were.
I downloaded all of the live-action Tick episodes after I watched them on their original air-dates except for the last episode. Once I found out the show was being cancelled, I knew that I had to get them since my chances of seeing them in re-runs are nil.
Other shows that I've downloaded have been because I watched the original pilot episode and then the broadcast station decided to change its time slot 40 times or showing something else in its place.
First, make sure it's ok with your builder. My builder didn't want me to do it because they were worried about the type of job I might do and the house still needed to be inspected by the city after the electrician came.
Second, two drops per room is not enough! Depending on how big your house is, you should be able to do 4 drops per room with a 1000' spool. My house is 2800 square feet and I still had about 300' feet leftover.
Third, if you're going to put in cat5e, might as well go ahead and put in RG6 as well. I put in two drops per room (one for cable, the other for satellite) and I'm sure glad I did. That way, the installers that work for the cable company don't have to drill a bunch of holes in the outside walls to install cable tv to the room. Besides, you might find other uses for it and the cost for 1000' feet (~$50) is about the same for 1000' of cat5e.
Fourth, it's easier to cable on inside walls than outside walls because it's difficult to find the cable on the outside wall due to the insulation. I had detailed documentation on where everything was but still couldn't find one of my drops because the insulation was hiding it. Do inside walls only if you can.
Fifth, make sure you document everything VERY well. You don't want to think you're in the vicinity of where the cables are and then find out you are off by a few inches. Just in case this happens, leave plenty of wire at the "end" (where it is going to be plug in the wall) so that if you are off, you can move it to the new hole. I took plenty of pictures with my digital camera and also took plenty of measurements.
If I could do it again, there would be few things that I would do differently. Mainly, I would have added more drops of RG6 and chosen only inside walls for the drops because of the difficulty in locating them inside the insulation.
Good:
I live in the SBC area (San Antonio) and have had only one service outage in since I received my DSL line. Swbell.net is also my ISP. Line speed is great too (1.5 down / 128 down) - although that might have something to do with the fact that I live a little less than two miles away from the CO.
Bad:
On the other hand, the company that I work for has DSL too - and the service that we've received has been pretty damn atrocious. SBC said we couldn't receive DSL (too far from the CO) so we contracted with another company who said they could provide us with at least 786k down. I don't think we've ever seen speeds like that. It usually about the same speed that our 128k ISDN line was (but a lot less expensive). We've also had several outages that have lasted anywhere from a day to a week. Of course, when we call to complain with the our provider, they say it's SBC's fault.
Slashdot Mirror
Hack A Day had this up on their site a few days ago here. In the comments on that page, there is a link to this really creepy hack that someone did with one of those Santas.
Contrary to popular belief, Fischer didn't emerge from the womb a full-blown grand master. While he was learning the game, as a child in Brooklyn, he was essentially a hotshot club player--a prodigy, to be sure, but not obviously world-championship material. But at age thirteen, in 1956, Fischer made a colossal leap. That year he became the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Championship. He also dominated the U.S. tournament circuit. What was astounding wasn't simply that a gawky thirteen-year-old kid in blue jeans was suddenly winning chess tournaments. It was the way he was winning. He didn't just beat people--he humiliated them.
Maybe the onset of puberty "turned on" his mental illness. This article and others seem to suggest that puberty can trigger an underlying mental condition. In fact, this article says:
Social phobia is the irrational fear and avoidance of being in a situation in which a person's activities can be watched by others. In a sense, it is a form of "performance anxiety," but a social phobia causes symptomsthat go well beyond the normal nervousness before an on-stage appearance. People suffering social phobias intensely fear being watched or humiliated while doing something--such as signing a personal check, drinking a cup of coffee, buttoning a coat or eating a meal--in front of others. Many patients suffer a generalized form of social phobia, in which they fear and avoid most interactions with other people. This makes it difficult for them to go to work or school, or to socialize at all. Social phobias occur equally among men and women, generally developing after puberty and peaking after age 30. A person can suffer from one or a cluster of social phobias.
Sounds like Mr. Fischer to me!
Which reminds me..
Q.Why does Snoop-Dog carry an umbrella?
A.For the drizzle!
I'm sure your inner 10 year old self will appreciate that one.
For Poul Anderson, check out his "Time Patrol" series and "Boat of a Million Years".
For Charles Sheffield, his "Proteus" series is a definite must.
PJF: "Riverworld" series.
Resnick: "Widomaker" series.
Does anyone have a list of ip's/dns names of sites that WinXP or Win2K connect to by themselves?
This is where you can find the "real" story.
FYI, most cappers remove the commercials.
I downloaded all of the live-action Tick episodes after I watched them on their original air-dates except for the last episode. Once I found out the show was being cancelled, I knew that I had to get them since my chances of seeing them in re-runs are nil.
Other shows that I've downloaded have been because I watched the original pilot episode and then the broadcast station decided to change its time slot 40 times or showing something else in its place.
I moved into my new house in May and ran cat5e.
First, make sure it's ok with your builder. My builder didn't want me to do it because they were worried about the type of job I might do and the house still needed to be inspected by the city after the electrician came.
Second, two drops per room is not enough! Depending on how big your house is, you should be able to do 4 drops per room with a 1000' spool. My house is 2800 square feet and I still had about 300' feet leftover.
Third, if you're going to put in cat5e, might as well go ahead and put in RG6 as well. I put in two drops per room (one for cable, the other for satellite) and I'm sure glad I did. That way, the installers that work for the cable company don't have to drill a bunch of holes in the outside walls to install cable tv to the room. Besides, you might find other uses for it and the cost for 1000' feet (~$50) is about the same for 1000' of cat5e.
Fourth, it's easier to cable on inside walls than outside walls because it's difficult to find the cable on the outside wall due to the insulation. I had detailed documentation on where everything was but still couldn't find one of my drops because the insulation was hiding it. Do inside walls only if you can.
Fifth, make sure you document everything VERY well. You don't want to think you're in the vicinity of where the cables are and then find out you are off by a few inches. Just in case this happens, leave plenty of wire at the "end" (where it is going to be plug in the wall) so that if you are off, you can move it to the new hole. I took plenty of pictures with my digital camera and also took plenty of measurements.
If I could do it again, there would be few things that I would do differently. Mainly, I would have added more drops of RG6 and chosen only inside walls for the drops because of the difficulty in locating them inside the insulation.
by this guy here.
Good:
I live in the SBC area (San Antonio) and have had only one service outage in since I received my DSL line. Swbell.net is also my ISP. Line speed is great too (1.5 down / 128 down) - although that might have something to do with the fact that I live a little less than two miles away from the CO.
Bad:
On the other hand, the company that I work for has DSL too - and the service that we've received has been pretty damn atrocious. SBC said we couldn't receive DSL (too far from the CO) so we contracted with another company who said they could provide us with at least 786k down. I don't think we've ever seen speeds like that. It usually about the same speed that our 128k ISDN line was (but a lot less expensive). We've also had several outages that have lasted anywhere from a day to a week. Of course, when we call to complain with the our provider, they say it's SBC's fault.
freshmeat.net did a much better April Fool's prank..
Check it out. It's better than what we've seen here so far..